“Hey,” Taylor answered in a hushed voice.
“What’s going on?” Samiah whispered. “Where are you? Are you okay? Have you been kidnapped?”
“Kidnapped?” Taylor asked, her voice now at a normal level.
Samiah sat up straight. “Hold on. Why were you whispering a second ago?”
“Because the lady next to me in line is all in my business,” Taylor said. “I know you were listening to my last phone call,” Samiah heard her say somewhat distantly, as if she’d pulled the phone away from her mouth. A second later, she said, “So, what’s up?”
“You tell me what’s up,” Samiah said. “You just texted emergency in all caps.”
“Oh, yeah, that. So, I have a meeting with this woman in Bee Cave today,” she said, referring to a suburb just west of Austin. “She’s in charge of some kind of homeschooling consortium type thing. I think it’s just a bunch of rich parents who pooled their money to start their own school because they don’t want their kids attending public school. Anyway, she wants to hire me to teach phys ed three days a week.”
Samiah brought a hand up to her head and rubbed her temple. “Is that what you call an emergency?”
“Well, she needs to know by this afternoon,” Taylor said. “The problem is, I’m not sure I want to commit to something like that. But if I don’t take the job, she has someone else she’s going to offer it to.” Her dramatic sigh had Samiah rolling her eyes.
“I don’t know what to do,” Taylor continued. “What if I accept her offer and I don’t like it? And it will definitely eat into the time I’ve set aside for my boyfriend project. I have less than six months to get my shit together before I find Mr. Perfect.”
Was this what it was like to have a little sister? Had she put Denise through this over the years?
“So, do you have any advice?” Taylor asked. “I didn’t want to bother London, but I really needed to talk this through with someone I can trust.”
“Oh, so it was okay to bothermeat work, but not London?”
“Well, you’re not literally saving the lives of sick children.”
She had a point.
Retrieving the steno pad from where she’d set it on the bench, Samiah flipped to a fresh page. “Let’s come up with a pros and cons list. It’s always the first place I start. Think about what you would be giving up if you took this job, then list the pros and cons and decide if it’s worth it.”
“Is it really that simple?”
“Sometimes,” Samiah answered. “Don’t make it any harder than it has to be.”
“You’re right,” she said, her relief evident in her voice. “And to think I almost emailed my older brother to ask his advice on this. That would have been a disaster.”
“How so?”
“You don’t want to know the details. Just trust me, it would have ended in me smashing my phone on the ground. Thank goodness I now have actual friends I can bounce ideas off of,” she said. “Okay, I’ll talk to you later. I’ve got a pros and cons list to write up.”
“Good luck,” Samiah said before ending the call.
Considering how close she’d come to ghosting them, Samiah couldn’t get over just how much she’d come to appreciate her new sisters-in-arms. It begged a question she hadn’t thought to ask, but one she couldn’t help but contemplate based on what happened yesterday. With Taylor and London in her life, did she even need Daniel Collins’s friendship?
Their morning coffee ritual had come at a time when her ego and heart needed a boost, but what had once been a pleasant diversion had become a distraction she couldn’t afford. Case in point, the twenty minutes of her lunch break she’d spent thinking about him instead of working on her app. She was falling into the same trap she’d gotten caught in before.
His rejection yesterday hurt, but she was slowly coming to realize that it was for the best. Her focus should be on her goals. She would make sure it was from here on out.
Chapter Sixteen
Securing his headphones over his head and pulling the drawstring of his hoodie tight, Daniel tried to block out everything and everyone around him. The atmosphere in the office today was too damn cheerful; it clashed with his shitty mood. There were office-wide high fives going around for the Sales team, who’d just landed a contract with a national coffeehouse chain, one Trendsetters had apparently been courting for months. Then there was the cake and coffee celebration for those with birthdays in September, which he should have been happy about—who in the hell didn’t like cake?—but all that did was remind him that he wouldn’t be here to share in the monthly celebration when his birthday rolled around.
But what had caused the most excitement around the office today was a certain munchkin-size visitor who seemed to be charming the pants off every Trendsetter employee she came in contact with. Samiah had arrived with the young girl just before lunchtime—what was oncehistime. Everyone had lost their minds, as if they’d never encountered a cute kid with a beaming smile and bubbly personality before.
Daniel had watched as surreptitiously as possible as Samiah took her on a tour of the office. She’d played around on the computers and even sat behind Barrington’s desk so she could have her picture taken.
They now stood just two desks down from him, at Amy Dodd’s station. He hadn’t seen their approach; he’d felt it. The sensation that rushed along his skin whenever Samiah was near had alerted him.
